Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/177

 the woods and inquire ingenuously where the city was. The satire of Tom Moore has been mentioned. Here is his picture of Washington:

"In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom, Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome, Where tribunes rule, where duski Davi bow, And what was Goose Creek once is Tiber now. This famed metropolis, where fancy sees Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;

Which travelling fools and gazateers adorn With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn; Tho' naught but wood and they see Where streets should run, and sages ought to be."

With the inauguration ceremonies of President Madison, March 4, 1809, the capital returned from Jeffersonian simplicity to the stateliness and fashion of Washington and Adams. Mrs. Madison, the charming hostess of the White House, revived the stately dinners and formal levees, and a court circle gradually grew up resplendent at balls and assemblies.

The War of 1812 had a special bearing on the history of Washington. It had been in progress almost two years when, early in the summer of 1814, rumor told of a great British